Study groups are both a complement and an alternative to traditional staff development. Becoming a community of adult learners is a complex process involving a number of ingredients: purpose, logistics, resources, transfer of learning, electronic networking, sustenance, and assessment. These ingredients are not meant to take the place of traditional staff development, nor are they intended as linear progression to be followed prescriptively. They simply represent suggestions to be considered by teachers and administrators when forming study groups. Local needs determine the who, what, where, when, why, and how of professional groups--examples of several study groups from around the United States illustrate how different their purposes can be. The perspective to maintain, however, is that study groups are important, they stimulate individual and collective growth, and they support school improvement. Unless this complement to staff development is considered seriously, language arts educators may never achieve their full potential as professionals. (RS)